


Tales From The Huxley Falls Public Library

by sepulchre



Series: Huxley Falls Archive [1]
Category: Original Work, huxley falls
Genre: Gen, Implied Violence, borderline NSFW, i wrote these when i was like 16 LOL, im bringing them over here along with newer stuff so i can archive my OC content, just a bunch of oc stuff LOL, self harm mention, self mutilation mention
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 17:11:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16433486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sepulchre/pseuds/sepulchre
Summary: A bunch of stories about my OCs, set in their hometown of Huxley Falls, a town where nothing is normal and nobody should ever enter the Falls. There will be short stories, oneshots, flash fiction, vignettes...I can't promise that they'll be in chronological order, but as a certain TV show tells us, time is not linear, and is in fact a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. If no specific time is given, assume it's contemporary.[POSTED FROM MY QUOTEV]





	1. 1 - in which Cassidy Case discovers that even angels get self conscious.

Cassidy and Abaddon tumbled to the couch in a mess of limbs and fervid moans. Time felt as though it moved far too quickly; a rare occurrence, Cassidy thought in her bouts of lucidness, as usually time in Huxley Falls moved painfully slowly. She felt the bruising fervency with which Abaddon pressed his lips to her flesh: her mouth; her jaw; her neck. She felt the tremors that ran along his spine as she unhooked her arms from where they looped around his neck; moving gloved, eager hands towards the lapels of his leather jacket, and tugging it away from his torso; pushing the jacket down his arms to where it pooled around his wrists and the base of his spine, his hands fixed against the curve of Cassidy's hips. For a moment, Abaddon relinquished his hold, slipping his arms out of the jacket's sleeves and throwing the garment to the floor before wrapping his arms around Cassidy's waist and pulling her up into a sitting position, reconnecting his lips to hers. Her hands rested on his neck; Abaddon shuddered as her hands drifted down towards the hem on his shirt. 

He broke off the kiss.   
"Please, don't."

Cassidy stared, all of her eyes focused on Abaddon. He coughed, a nervous habit, and tried to avoid his girlfriend's gaze; easier said than done, considering that 40% of her visible skin was covered by eyes.   
"What." It wasn't a question; it was merely an exclamation. Cassidy folded her arms across her chest as Abaddon sat up, his elbows resting on his knees as he stared at the opposite wall.   
"I don't want to take my shirt off." He mumbled it, near silently, under his breath.   
"What? Why not?"   
Abaddon remained quiet, attempting to put off answering the question. He put his head in his hands, not daring himself to speak for the longest of times. Eventually, he looked up and cleared his throat.   
"You know...You know how my brother has wings, a-and I don't?" He chuckled nervously, staring down at his feet. Cassidy nodded.   
"Have you ever wondered why?" With that, he took a deep, calming breath, and reached for the hem of his shirt, pulling it up and over his head in one swift movement. Cassidy furrowed her brows, staring at his torso as he turned around. Now sitting with his back to her, Abaddon swallowed thickly, anxiety getting the better of him.   
Gloved fingers touched against the skin of his back. Cassidy stifled a gasp. "Who did this?"  
Abaddon's hands found their way back to his face, resting over his eyes before he ran them through his dark hair, greased back hairstyle, ruffling it. "I did."  
"T-to yourself? How?" There was a pause before Cassidy spat out the most important question yet; "Why?"  
Abaddon kept quiet, composing himself in preparation of answering. Cassidy's fingers, unhindered by her leather gloves, traced along the marks on her boyfriend's back: the raised, milk white scar tissue; the deep, vermillion nicks and cuts. Pink-tinted flesh, jagged along the edges, made way to a vast network of crimson wounds: some thin, small, and scabbing over; some long and deep, a half an inch wide and with white flashes of visible bone; and two that mirrored each other in mockingly perfect symmetry, stretching from shoulder blade to the base of the ribcage, flesh and bone and nerve excised with haphazard carelessness. 

"Cass, I...I did something I shouldn't have. I can't tell you what, but..." Abaddon's voice dipped - lower, quieter, conspiratorial. "...it was bad. Bad enough that it deserved punishment."  
He glanced over his shoulder, too ashamed to meet the gaze of any of Cassidy's eyes. She, on the other hand, stared at him, lips pursed, waiting for him to continue.   
"I was singled out, forced into the role of a pariah. My wings were made to be black; a sign that people were meant to avoid me...And when my brother refused to abandon me, we were both banished."  
"Banished...to here?"  
Abaddon nodded. "Yes. The people here took us in, treated us well. But I still felt ashamed; burdened by my past actions. I still bore the mark..."  
"S-so you cut off your wings?!" Cassidy's voice grew higher in pitch and louder in volume as she advanced towards the end of the sentence. Abaddon swallowed, sighed, ran his hands through his hair once again. A bitter laugh resonated in his throat.   
"Our first day here. We were given a house, told that we couldn't live out on the street, it simply wouldn't be allowed. Are all of Huxley's empty houses furnished? Or is it because people disappear a lot?"  
Cassidy responded with a shrug, too shocked to indulge him with a real answer to his tangential questions.   
"The first thing I found was a straight razor. I wasn't really looking; I just went upstairs and found it, and I-"  
"Enough, enough! I don't want to hear this..." Cassidy cut him off, practically shouting. After a moment spent composing herself, during which neither party had spoken, she traced a scar on Abaddon's back. "Why have some of the wounds healed, and other still look fresh?"  
"They grow back sometimes..."  
Cassidy blanched in abject horror. Of all the things she had faced in this town, this was one of the worst. "You have to keep doing this?!"  
"Yes."  
"But these wounds are still open...Oh my god, did you have to do this recently?!"  
"Yes."  
"Holy hell, Abaddon, why would you do this to yourself? Nobody here would have judged you!" (Oh, no. He could tell, from the slight wobble to Cassidy's voice, that she was crying, or about to cry. Thank God she only had two working tear ducts, and that they were attached to her regular eyes, and not any of the hundred eyes located elsewhere on her body.)  
It took Abaddon a moment to realise what Cassidy was saying. It took him a few more moments before he felt capable of replying.   
"Please don't cry."  
Cassidy had the audacity to sob loudly in response.   
"I'm sorry. I know what you're saying. It's just...I'm destined to be burdened by this in one way or another. And this way, people don't stare. Plus, wings just get in the damn way; have you ever seen Grigori try to walk through a doorway?"  
Cassidy rested her head against Abaddon's left shoulder, simpering in amusement. He felt her mouth against his skin, lips parting as she smiled; the eyelashes of her third eye brushed against him lightly. 

He cleared his throat. "Are we done being meaningful and emotional, now? I do believe that we were supposed to be making out."   
The gloved palm of Cassidy's right hand made brief contact with the back of Abaddon's head. "Shut up."  
A smirk made its way onto his lips. "Can't blame a guy for trying, huh?"


	2. 2 - in which Grigori Hesper gets beat up. A lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was before I'd settled on my characterisation of the Hesper brothers (especially Grigori), but it's written in a way that's biased to Grig's perspective, so............unreliable narrator?

Grigori was raised on the lie that the meek shall inherit the earth.  
Even if this were true, it would be useless if not applicable during high school.  
For the most part, the citizens of Huxley Falls were nice enough, but - as was the case with most nice places - the local high school was the outlier to this trend.  
Huxley Falls High School was a monolithic building of red brick and large windows. It stood, imposingly, on the outskirts of town, as far away from the Falls that one could get without officially leaving the town.  
Grigori wished that he could leave the town. He couldn't, of course, because his brother had caused them to be banished there; he wasn't bitter about it. He just didn't want to be there, in the high school, at least. But, thankfully, in another year and a half, he would be free to leave, get a job, and become a respected member of the local community, as opposed to a punching bag.   
He grimaced at the thought, heart thudding against his ribcage, clammy hands gripping against the textbook he held to his chest. His leaden feet dragged him, unwilling, across the campus and towards the baronial structure.  
Sharp incisor teeth clamped down on his top lip in worry, dreading the entirety of the day ahead; he dreaded his lessons, breaktime, the lunch hour. If the opportunity presented it, he would gladly defenestrate himself via the second floor window, drop to the ground, roll, get up and walk home on splintered legs, with fractured ribs, shattered shoulder blades and broken wings. He longed for the respite of the few lessons he shared with his twin, clutching at the sliver of hope that today of all days he would have math or history; that he could sit at the back of the classroom without worry for his physical or mental wellbeing, an hour of peace like an oasis in the barren desert that was his academic life, Abaddon's steely gaze fixed upon anyone that had even the mere audacity to glance at Grigori for longer than the younger Hesper deemed acceptable.  
Everyone was scared of Abaddon. There were, of course, exceptions; Cassidy was definitely capable of holding her ground against him, and sometimes it seemed as though Abaddon was the more submissive of the two. Other than that, however, the only people not threatened by him were rather scary in their own right: Mallory Cessair was, frankly, terrifying - the sheriff's daughter, all white hair and blank eyes and gangling limbs, she was the only person to have entered the Falls and lived; Trudy James never spoke, and her aura stretched far beyond her short, lithe stature, giving her an overwhelmingly intimidating air; in honesty, even Grigori himself often found that he was afraid of his twin's darker traits.  
It was useful, however, to have a terrifying entity as a brother. Grigori had learnt that on several occasions, when, nose bloodied and legs weak, he had been moved aside - his brother intervened and helped him.  
Some days - most days - he was not so lucky, and was left clinging weakly to consciousness on the sun-baked tarmac of the school parking lot, gravel sticking into his skin, rivulets of sweat dripping down his face, mingling with blood but no tears - never tears, Grigori had told himself; tears showed pain and weakness, and he would deal with his punishment with the dignity of a martyr.  
Today, he was not fortunate enough to have his brother encounter him before several blows had already been dealt. Grigori hunched over on the macadam of the courtyard, wheezing. He was acutely aware of the taste of iron, and as such he was fairly certain that he had lost a tooth. Blood dripped lazily from his left nostril, down his lips and chin, a crimson smear that was already beginning to dry under the persistent glare of the mid afternoon sun. He coughed - once, twice - and attempted to stand up straight. The act was met with a swift punch which connected with his stomach. He fell to the ground, coughing a third time. This time, he was kicked to the ground; instinctively, he covered his head with his arms and wrapped his wings around his torso. Regardless, his body was met with a barrage of harsh strikes, the boots and sneakers of his attackers rained down a merciless series of blows. Without intending to, he cried out as one of the assailants stomped down on his head and forearms.   
To his left, there was a grunt. The group surrounding Grigori seemed to shrink back, withdrawing from his crumpled form. Somebody knelt down beside him, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him to his feet; before he saw the blonde hair or the freckles he was already aware that it was Cassidy from the tentative grip of her gloved fingers. He raised his hands to his face, wiping grit from his eyes. His brother nodded to him, he was suddenly aware that he was being half-dragged, half-carried away, towards the nearby benches, by people who were not Cassidy - process of elimination dictated that they must have been Mallory and Trudy, for Grigori's brain was logical even when clouded by pain. Cassidy had stayed on the blacktop, and was now whispering something to a smirking Abaddon.   
The boys that had been attacking Grigori - for they were all boys; even the one Faceless that was involved had taken on masculine form - had, accidentally, arranged themselves in a line in their haste to get away from the younger Hesper twin. From behind him, Grigori heard Mallory make a snort of derision as she regarded them. A whisper of "Pathetic..." left her chapped, blue tinged lips.  
Abaddon strode forward.   
He looked not too dissimilar from a military general regarding his new troops for the first time. When he was about two paces from the group, he spoke, in the deep and sonorous baritone that he had been fortunate enough to inherit from their father (Grigori had been left with something half an octave higher which possessed none of the melodious gravitas of Abaddon's rich timbre). "Who amongst you," there was a pause, and Grigori mentally chided his brother for being overly dramatic "...is the strongest?"  
Amongst the group, there was slight jostling, and quiet whispers of the names of volunteers. Eventually, one boy whom Grigori recognised from the car repair place on main street, was pushed forward. He cleared his throat, making the mistake of looking Abaddon dead in the eye. "I am."  
Abaddon nodded curtly, closed the distance between them and, quite without warning or any other indication, slammed his closed fist into the boy's jaw; he staggered to the side at the impact, spitting out blood. Abaddon gave him no time to retaliate before wrenching the boy's head down by the hair and smashing a knee against his nose with a sickening crack. The boy crumpled, hit the ground, choked out a sob. Grigori could hear Cassidy cheering lightheartedly as Abaddon's boot made repeated contact with the boy's ribs. Trudy applauded wildly.  
The rest of the group had dispersed, many turning and running at the earliest opportunity. Abaddon crouched down next to the, now whimpering, 'strongest boy'.   
"Tell your shitheaded friends to leave my brother alone, ya hear?"  
With that, he straightened up, leaving the boy on the tarmac to suffer, and crossed the distance to his brother - Cassidy bounded over beside him. Abaddon hunkered down, studying Grigori's bruised face. "You okay?"  
Grigori nodded, as it was far beyond his abilities to verbally communicate for the time being. Everyone remained in the same place, silent; after a moment, Grigori spoke, his voice thick and strained. "Thanks."  
Abaddon smiled, clamping a hand onto the other Hesper's shoulder, shaking him lightly. "Hey, no worries. I've got your back, big bro. Now, get up. We're missing baseball practice."


	3. 3 - in which Jebediah Hawkins becomes a ghost (but that bit is only implied).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The backstory of Huxley Falls' one and only, eternally 22 year old ghostly Deputy Sheriff! This is, to this day 5+ years after writing this, one of my favourite pieces I've ever written LOL

**Huxley Falls, 1853**  
   
"What d'ya reckon did this? Wolves?"  
"Ain't no wolves in Huxley, Jeb."

  
The sheriff - an aging, stout man with an unnaturally gaunt face that went by the name of Edison Moss - hunkered down to inspect something. "What would a wolf eat, anyway?"  
Jebediah Hawkins, the young deputy, kicked the heel of his boot into the dirt, sending a small cloud of dust up into the air. "Probably somethin' like that, Moss." He nodded his head towards the eviscerated, emaciated bovine corpse that the sheriff was examining.   
"There's no wolves here, Jeb. A wolf didn't do this."  
"I dunno, Moss, it looks just like the wolf attacks that I've seen; they used to happen all the time back home." Jebediah tipped the brim of his stetson, brushing some strands of blonde hair away from the sweat-damp skin of his forehead. Moss glanced up, straightening his body and standing.   
"Jebediah, you ain't listening. There are not, and have never been, any wolves in Huxley Falls."  
"Stranger things have happened, boss."  
Moss turned around, and walked away, a blank, impassive look on his face. "I'm going back to town. Follow me when you're done here."  
Jeb squinted in a valiant effort to maintain vision against the bright glare of midday sunlight. From behind half-closed eyelids and rows of pale lashes, his blue eyes roved over the scene. 

  
There were three cows, all killed in the exact same way, all partially eaten.   
It was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the work of wolves.   
He hunkered down, dipping his forefinger into the blood-saturated dirt in front of him and rubbing it against his thumb. The blood had not yet congealed, meaning that the attack was relatively recent. And, undoubtedly, the work of wolves.   
There was nothing else in the world that could have done it. Of course it was wolves; it was an archetypal wolf attack. So what if the sheriff denied the blatant evidence because there were, apparently, no wolves in Huxley Falls? Maybe they just hadn't seen the wolves? Maybe the wolves were incredibly polite and only came to town at night, when they were hungry? Jeb - vaguely amused by his own wolf-based, absurd hilarity - let out a small, momentary bark of laughter before placing his hands on his knees and straightening up. 

  
Seriously, though, wolves had killed the cattle. That much was obvious.   
He left the field, closing the gate to the paddock behind him, meandering back towards the Sheriff's office in the centre of town.   
Wolf attacks were pretty common in Jeb's hometown. His father owned a cattle ranch back home; he knew all the tell-tale signs of a wolf attack off by heart. The farmhouse was a dilapidated, two storey building with a deep basement, surrounded by vast acres of grazing land and protected by a large wooden fence on one side, and an abatis of felled trees from the forest beyond their land on the other. It had gone into slight disrepair after the death of Jeb's mother, in so much as there was now nobody to tend the fences, and as such wolves had now been given easy passage onto the land. Every week or so, there would be a few cows killed and eaten, and Jeb and his father would work to clean them up, while his sister made an effort to patch up the fence, but it would never hold, and the wolves would be back.   
He had seen what wolves could do in the past, and he had just seen it again, right there, in the main paddock of the cattle farm.  
When he returned to the town, however, he had kept quiet; even though he was certain that he was correct, he knew better than to insist, especially when the Sheriff disagreed with his views. So, instead of ranting and raving about the fact that it was blatantly a wolf attack that had killed the cattle, he sat on the long, wooden bench outside of the Sheriff's office, busying himself by cleaning out his six gun.

  
That evening, however, Jeb had made haste to the Church and the record books kept there within, intending to verify the existence of wolves in the town (or, at least, prove that there had been prior documented wolf attacks, and garner the benefit of the doubt from Moss). The sky was darkening to the rich, blood red of sunset, the beautiful crossfade between the vibrant blue and yellow of daylight hours, and the starless velvet of the black night sky. Jeb probably had his hands in his pockets, and it was more than likely that he was whistling as he went along.   
The pastor moved aside and allowed Jeb entrance to the small, white church with neither greeting nor complaint; he merely proffered a solemn bow of the head, accompanied by a grand and sweeping gesture made by his arm, before he closed the door behind Jeb.  
The Deputy strode through the large hall; he made his way between the pews, past the pulpit, and into the small side room where the town records were kept in the form of a large, leatherbound tome, filled with pages inked in laborious calligraphy.  
He leafed through the pages, searching for something - anything - that would prove (or at least support) his wolf attack theory. He perused the information displayed in the thick book for several minutes of fruitless results, until he heard the door open behind him.

  
"I thought I'd be findin' you here."  
Jeb turned, keeping one hand on the book so as not to lose his place, and was greeted with the martinet expression etched onto Moss' stern, thin face. Jeb bristled, straightening up to his full ungainly height and rolling his broad shoulders.  
"Boss, I know I'm right about the wovles."  
A thick silence settled in the room in the way that a fog would roll down from the mountains on a cold day. It covered everything. It was so deafeningly quiet in the room that it became impossible to focus on anything else, but in the back of his mind Jeb knew that he should be trying his best to seem formidable; he needed Moss to back down, and he needed noise.  
"Don't keep diggin' for answers, boy. You won't like what you'll find."  
It wasn't, by any means, an admission of defeat, but at least Moss had spoken. The crypticness of the statement - or was it, perhaps, a threat? - caught Jeb off guard, however, and it took him a moment to mull over the words before forming a response. 

  
"Boss..why  _are_  there no wolves in the Falls?"

  
Moss smiled from between his parted lips, moonlight from the room's lone window glinting against his crooked teeth. Jeb, for a moment, was relieved, as he was finally asking the right questions; to his mind, at least, this was the case. After a second or two, or maybe longer, that relief dripped away, gone as soon as the Deputy's mind registered the sound of a latch falling. Moss had locked the door. The Sheriff was still smiling, although now Jeb could hear the snarl reverberating around the room, rumbing out of Moss' throat like steam from a kettle.   
"...Boss?" Jeb's words caught in his throat, as though it were fabric snagged on a briar, the wearer running through the underbrush to escape a predator.  
Moss doubled over, crouching on his haunches. His arms reached back over his own shoulders, fingers clawing at his back as he ripped skin away from muscle, only to have it replaced by thick pelt of the same salt-and-pepper grey as Moss' hair. Bones cracked. Fur grew.   
Eventually, the thing that used to be Moss rose up. Its jaw clicked when it opened it, and after far too long it spoke, in a growling, guttural mockery of the Sheriff's voice.

  
"There are no wolves in the Falls, Jebediah, because wolves know when they should be  _afraid_."


	4. 4 - in which Abaddon Hesper is the worst boyfriend ever and Cassidy Case plots his demise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cas/per tease each other but they really are in love LOL  
> 'Eyeball in My Martini' is by The Cramps, and 'Brown Eyed Girl' is by Van Morrison.

Cassidy watched in silence as the band set up on stage - as far, she was the only one there, with the exception of the band and a rather petulant Grigori Hesper. The dim lighting of the smoky bar room caught, reflecting on her eyes. A discordant note rattled out of the speaker as Abaddon, up on the platformed stage, strummed his half-tuned guitar; he swore at the harsh, unpleasant sound, the microphone picking up the utterance and amplifying it. He twisted the tuning pegs with his left hand, placed his finger on the fourth fret, and checked that the pitch of the strings matched. 

 

As she sipped her drink, Cassidy was very aware of how out of place she must have seemed - not that there was anyone really there yet, anyway. She removed the cherry from her "gin-free Tom Collins" (it was a lemonade, but the bartender had insisted on pretending it was a nonalcoholic cocktail) and - entirely bored with the lack of people, music, and general things happening - threw it at her boyfriend's head. Up on stage, from behind a bass guitar that was almost as big as she was tall, Trudy snorted with laughter. Abaddon wiped the ex-cherry - now little more than red goop - from his forehead, flicking it off the palm of his hand with a look of disdain. "Hey." he frowned, eyebrows furrowing, and the black sclera of his eyes narrowing. 

"Do something, you moron." Cassidy put her gloved hands either side of her mouth in an attempt to make the playful gibe carry further. Frankly, the boredom was getting to her, and Ruby had told her that Red's wouldn't let anyone in for another five minutes. 

Abaddon flashed a grin and subtly extended his middle finger, flipping her the bird under the guise of holding down the fifth fret. Cassidy, despite this obscenity, groaned and lay her head down on the table, forearms covering her. She immediately regretted it; the table was coated with a thin film of old alcohol, and it was sticking to her skin and hair. She sat up again, pulling her cardigan sleeve over her hand and scrubbing at her face in an attempt to remove the residue from her cheek, thanking sundry deities that it hadn't gotten into one of her eyes. 

 

Another cacophonous sound came out of the speaker; this time a mix of notes from Trudy's bass and Abaddon's guitar, accompanied by a Sonics-esque vocal howl. Oh, good, they were almost ready - Mallory was yet to do do anything with the drums, but Cassidy assumed she was probably just conserving energy. 

Cassidy picked up her camera from the seat next to her and snapped a photograph, winding it on to prepare it for the next image. Abaddon shot Ruby a thumbs up, and she unlocked the door to the bar. A steady stream of people (monster, mutants, and divine beings also) filtered into the smoky room and found seats. Grigori pushed past people, knocking into them with his broad wings, and sat down in the seat next to Cassidy. 

Up on stage, meanwhile, Abaddon wasted no time. He introduced the band as "Skeleton Monarchy - a working title", before affectionately dedicating the song to his "loser girlfriend." Cassidy glared. 

 

The band launched into the song, playing a familiar intro. 

 

" _I went out to eat the other night; picked up my girl at eight._ "

Oh. 

" _In my soup I found a fly, but, there beyond my plate..._ "

Oh, no. 

Cassidy's eyes - all of them - went wide, her mouth narrowed into a thin line. From his place on stage, Abaddon smirked down at her. 

 

" _…was an eyeball in my martini! A highball with a twist. One in my linguini, too; I said, 'There's somethin' wrong with this!_ '"

She was going to kill him. Actually kill him. Probably with poison. 

" _Eyeballs, eyeballs, eyeballs; eyeballs everywhere! Eyeballs, eyeballs, eyeballs, floating through the air!_ " Abaddon followed this with a rumbling growl. Cassidy folded her arms and glared up at him. 

 

" _We went to the amusement park to ride the Tunnel of Love. But when I went to hold her hand, there was an eyeball in her glove! We went to Lover's Lane to scan for U.F.O.'s...You just imagine what I saw when I--_ " That was it, this was no longer tolerable. 

 

Cassidy got up, told Grigori to make sure nobody stole her seat, and walked out, planning to stand outside for the duration of the song. Once outside, she leaned against the wall next to the door. About two minutes later, she walked back inside. The song drew to a close. 

 

Abaddon leaned back towards the mic. "This next song it also for my girlfriend. It's called 'Brown Eyed Girl'." 

Cassidy was about to kill him. 


	5. 5 - in which River Marsh needs to put on a damn shirt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> River and Trudy are OCs belonging to a friend of mine; River is an eel-boy.  
> Also some subtle introductions to side-characters Atticus and Gabe, as well as Mallory's soon-to-be girlfriend, Melina.

_Due to flagrant disregard for public decency on the part of certain students, Huxley Falls High School has introduced a new uniform policy. Effective as of Monday, students are required to follow uniform regulation codes due to a new regulation known as "No shoes, no shirt, no student", in which any person or creature attending school in a state of undress will be threatened with immediate suspension (possibly from the school roof). At least one of the various uniform styles will be made available to each student; as of tomorrow, they will be delivered and can be found on the second shelf in your refrigerator. Check hourly. Faculty would like to remind the students that wearing shirts IS compulsory._

* * *

  
Cassidy typed, the keys on her keyboard clacking loudly. From over her shoulder, Abaddon watched, reading the article and shoving copious amounts of french fries into the gaping maw he called his mouth.  
He chewed noisily, and Cassidy rolled nearly all of her eyes simultaneously. Her hands hovered over the keys for a moment, gloved fingers flexing. Beside her, Abaddon chewed, somewhat obnoxiously. When he had quite finished, he cleared his throat, and gestured to the computer screen.

  
"This is all River's fault." He said. And he was right. 

  
It was entirely River Marsh's fault. The boy had a very blurred concept of when nudity and semi-nudity was acceptable. If Cassidy was the sort who prayed, she would thank God that Trudy had managed to convince the boy to at least wear pants on a regular basis. Shirts, on the other hand, were an entirely different kettle of fish. River claimed shirts to be too restrictive, too stifling. He was not unattractive by conventional standards, despite the slight cracking to his skin, so a decent number of the female students (and several of the male ones - Cassidy was almost certain she had caught Atticus staring, but Atticus was Atticus, so he didn't count) didn't really complain.  
There was hell on over it from the faculty, however. He was public enemy number one in the teachers' lounge. Well, public enemy number two - the top spot was, of course, filled by her charming boyfriend, who started about five fights a day and slept through nearly all of his classes. It was, frankly, akin to a miracle that he hadn't been permanently excluded yet. If she wasn't absolutely certain of the opposite, she would think someone up there (i.e. The Big Man, The Lord, The Father, GOD) was looking out for him.

  
Finding no more inspiration for the short column she was writing, Cassidy signed off with her usual "C. Case" signature, saved the document, and went about uploading it to the school site - the sooner it was up, the better.   
The quiet of the library was broken rather quickly when the door slammed open. Cassidy and Abaddon glanced up in unison, both quirking their left brow in an amazing display of synchronicity.

  
"It's not fair, Trudes. They're making me wear shirts! It's eel-ist, I'm telling you. Eel-ist!"  
Speak of the Devil...  
Cassidy glanced back to Abaddon, and he glanced at her. The pair were yet to lower their eyebrows. River spotted the couple sitting at the computer desks, and grabbed his small, colourful-haired companion by the wrist, dragging her over to them.   
"Cassidy! Can't you do anything about the uniforms? You're on the student council!" River whined loudly, disturbing the library's peace again. From the librarian's desk, Melina glared at him from behind her sunglasses, and issued a serpentine hiss of "Shh!", her hair subtly writhing in agreement. River looked over and shot her a smile and a thumbs up, before looking back at Cassidy.

  
"River, we took a vote and we all thought it was for the best. Trudy practically begged me to vote yes, even though I was prepared to do so anyway-"  
"TRUDES! YOU BETRAYED ME!?" River shouted, outraged, only to be shushed more insistently by Melina. "How did she beg you, anyway?! She doesn't even speak!" At River's comment, Abaddon snickered, trying to cover it with a cough. Trudy glared at the eel boy, but remained silent and very short.  
"Listen," Cassidy started to reason with him, "I can't do anything about the new uniforms. If you want to complain, you can take it up with Gabe before the new uniforms arrive--"  
"Fine, I'll do that." River interrupted, grabbing Trudy's arm and pulling her towards the door. Cassidy got out of her seat and quickly caught up with them, blocking them from exiting.  
"Just wait a second, okay? Gabe is absent due to urgent business, and we haven't had a chance to choose an acting student body president since the Faceless are doing a thing in the council room--"  
"When will Gabe be back?"  
"Stop interrupting me! He'll be back on Wednesday."  
"But that's two days after the uniforms are getting introduced!"  
"Yep." Cassidy nodded, and River pouted at her.  
"You're the opposite of helpful, you know."  
"Mmhmm. That's why I'm perfect for student government. See you later." She smiled, and walked back to Abaddon, who was currently starting on his third carton of fries.  
River stood frozen in front of the doorway, Trudy stock-still next to him. After a second, he ripped off his shirt, tearing it at the seams, and threw it on the floor at his feet. "FUCK YOUR STIFLING CLOTH BULLSHIT!"  
From behind her desk, Melina stood up. "RIVER MARSH, THIS IS YOUR THIRD WARNING. GET THE HELL OUT; YOU'RE BANNED FOR A WEEK."


	6. 6 - in which two boys fall to earth and nobody finds it all that weird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pre-incident Mallory, our first look at Gideon Cessair (one-armed sheriff and dedicated single father), and half of the story of how the Hespers ended up in H.F.

**6 years ago**  
  
Mallory sat on the long, wooden bench outside of the sheriff's office; the radio on one side of her, Cassidy, reading a magazine, on the other. Today was Sunday, the last day of summer. Tomorrow, the girls would be forced back to school, for another year of useless lessons, insipid people, generally atrocious and stupid situations...Next to the girls, the radio crackled; static - with ominous Latin chanting and occasional guitar chord - was that week's number one song. Mallory didn't think much of it, and, based upon the way she scrunched up her nose in distaste, neither did Cassidy.

"' _That was Rotten Cerebellum with 'Spiritual Massacre'! Next up, an oldie but goodie...'_  
 _'Down in Mexicali, there's a crazy little place that I know..._ '" 

  
Cassidy, not looking up from her magazine, cooed at the change in music. "I like this one, Mal; turn it up, please?" Mallory nodded, grinning, and turned up the volume on the radio. They listened to the vocalist croon about mustachioed bar owners and dancing with girls for a while, then Cassidy closed the magazine. "I'm gonna go get something to eat. Want anything?" she tilted her head as she spoke, bangs falling to the side and revealing the eye in the centre of her forehead. Mallory shrugged, debating if she did actually want anything. After a second or two, she nodded the affirmative, following it up with a "Yeah, yes please. Some chips, and anything to drink, please."   
"Sure, okay. I won't take to long, I think." With that, the blonde jogged away, towards the general store. Mallory picked up the discarded magazine, leafing through the pages, her dark hair falling in her face.

  
The next few seconds seemed to happen all at once, not that that was impossible in a town like Huxley Falls. Thinking back on it later, Mallory seemed to remember being on her feet and running before she heard the crash of bodies falling to hard earth, before dirt clouds were thrown several feet up in the air, and before the two craters had pockmarked Main Street. Everything seemed to blur together. She heard violent coughing from one of the craters, rushed to the edge of it where the ground gave way, and watched a figure shakily rise to its feet.  
He wore a white tunic, belted at the waist. His hair, black, long, and matted, hung in his face and two black feathered wings stretched out from his shoulder blades like he were a bird in flight, casting a shadow over Mallory's thin frame. He was tall; thin limbed and tanned, with high cheekbones and an aquiline nose. When he opened his eyes, Mallory saw that his sclera were black. He cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice was deep and clear.

"Hello."

"Uh, hey." She stared up at him, proffered a small wave and a smaller smile, then dropped her arm down by her side. From the second crater, she heard a pained groan.   
Both she and the long-haired angel guy turned to face the sound of the noise. There were a series of coughs, before the person inside that crater sat up, rubbing his face. He had shorter hair than the first boy - it was curlier, too - and he had white wings, but they seemed to be around the same height, and had similar features, from what she could see. If she had to guess, Mallory would say the two were brothers.   
When the second boy - the one with the white wings - dropped his hand from his face, Mallory saw blood dripping languidly from his nostrils, and from a cut across the bridge of his nose. When he fell, he had landed on his face. He groaned audibly, then murmured "Ah, fuck-" under his breath. Then, louder and more pointedly, "This is all your fucking fault, Abaddon."  
The one with the black wings- presumably Abaddon - let out a sigh, his shoulders drooping. "How is this all my fault? Please, enlighten me."  
The two began to bicker, obviously forgetting Mallory was there, and within seconds the white-winged boy was on his feet and trying to punch the other. 

"Gah, uh, h-hey!" Mallory managed to stutter out with enough volume to shock the white-winged boy into dropping his fist back to his side, although the collar of his brother's tunic was still gripped by his other hand.  
A million different thoughts ran through Mallory's head as she considered how to diffuse the situation: who are you?; shouldn't you get your nose checked by a doctor?; what do you mean, "this is all your fault"?; did you two actually fall from the sky, or was that, like, a trick of the light or something? 

She didn't manage to ask any of them.

"What the fresh hell is going on here?" A rich timbre, deep and authoritative and familiar. 

Sheriff Cessair had emerged from his office; he hadn't heard the initial thud of the boys' bodies, but he _had_ heard the ensuing ruckus and came out to investigate. Mallory glanced towards her father, mouth pulling down and eyes widening in a subtle and wordless plea for help. With his one hand, Gideon ruffled her dark hair comfortingly as he stepped closer to the lip of the crater.

The boys stared at him, clearly intimidated; the curly-haired one relinquished his grip on his brother's clothing.

"Newcomers?" Gideon asked; the long-haired, black-winged boy - _Abaddon_ \- gave a tense, wordless nod. With a glint of paternal warmth in his eye, Gideon jumped down into the shallow pit, clasping his lone hand on Abaddon's shoulder first, then the other boy's.

"We'll make some arrangements. Welcome to Huxley Falls, fellas."


End file.
